diff --git a/roles/matrix-conduit/tasks/setup_conduit.yml b/roles/matrix-conduit/tasks/setup_conduit.yml
index 17738b17..25632c80 100644
--- a/roles/matrix-conduit/tasks/setup_conduit.yml
+++ b/roles/matrix-conduit/tasks/setup_conduit.yml
@@ -1,26 +1,20 @@
 ---
-- name: Ensure Conduit paths exist
+- name: Ensure Conduit config path exists
   file:
-    path: "{{ item.path }}"
+    path: "{{ matrix_conduit_config_path }}"
     state: directory
     mode: 0750
     owner: "{{ matrix_user_username }}"
     group: "{{ matrix_user_groupname }}"
-  with_items:
-    - {path: "{{ matrix_conduit_config_path }}", when: true}
-    - {path: "{{ matrix_conduit_data_path }}", when: true}
-  when: "matrix_conduit_enabled|bool and item.when"
+  when: "matrix_conduit_enabled|bool"
 
-# We do this as a separate task, because:
-# - we'd like to do it for the data path only, not for the base path (which contains root-owned environment variable files we'd like to leave as-is)
-# - matrix-postgres does something similar
-- name: Ensure Conduit data path ownership is correct
+- name: Ensure Conduit data path exists
   file:
     path: "{{ matrix_conduit_data_path }}"
     state: directory
+    mode: 0770
     owner: "{{ matrix_user_username }}"
     group: "{{ matrix_user_groupname }}"
-    recurse: true
-  when: matrix_conduit_enabled|bool
+  when: "matrix_conduit_enabled|bool"
 
 - import_tasks: "{{ role_path }}/tasks/conduit/setup.yml"